Making nanny statism perfectly clear

“When people are doing things that are detrimental to their own well being, then government should step in.”

So proclaims New York State Senator Carl Kruger in response to concerns that his proposal to ban walking while talking on cell phones or listening to music players might be too nanny statist. (The article fails to point out that Kruger is a Democrat.) Of all the idiocies I have read about recently, this one takes the cake:

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – After targeting distracted drivers, some New York lawmakers want to go after distracted walkers. They are looking to ban them from using iPods, music players and cell phones while walking and crossing the street.

At E.A.T. restaurant on Madison Avenue they still haven’t gotten over the death of co-worker Jason King, killed last month when a truck hit him as he crossed the street while listening to his iPod.

“He was everything to us. He was always laughing, always in a good mood,” co-worker Nunny Sanchez told CBS 2?s Marcia Kramer.

“We all miss him dearly like crazy. He was the light of E.A.T. I miss him a lot,” Josephina Medina added.

Jason was just 21 and his death and along with other accidents involving people using electronic gadgets while walking is why Brooklyn Sen. Karl Kruger is looking to ban things like cell phones and iPods for pedestrians crossing the street.

“We have people who are literally dying in the street,” Kruger said.

Dying, Kruger said, not because they are distracted drivers but because they are distracted walkers. Charles Tabasso, 14, admitted he’s one of them because he listens to his iPod constantly.

“I would probably get run over right now if it weren’t for my awesome parents,” Tabasso said.

His mom agreed.

“As a parent I am definitely in favor of banning these things,” Tullia Tabasso said.

As a parent of a 14 year old, you already can ban “these things” lady! It is called parenting. What has happened?

Is parenting no longer for parents?

But maybe I should cut it out with these sarcastic rhetorical questions, and try to analyze the problem in a calm and logical manner. The reasoning seems to be that because there are people who either have no sense in their little heads or else they’re so stupid and uncoordinated that they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, then I shouldn’t be allowed to walk around while talking on a cell phone or listening to an mp3 player.

It’s also driven by the fact that children do in fact walk right into traffic listening to and staring into these things. I live near the University of Michigan campus and I see it all the time. I regard them as fools, yet others regard them as victims in need of protection. The old “if we could save just one child” thinking. These mindsets are incompatible and irreconcilable; the nanny staters see my thinking as cruel, heartless, and dangerous to society, while I see theirs as deluded, irrational, and dangerous to freedom. So I write blog posts, and involve myself in local Tea Party politics.

Similar thinking drives gun control, bans on pit bulls, attempts to regulate people’s sex lives, and prohibition of substances like alcohol, drugs and even foods. Because some people cannot handle their whatever, the government is going to preempt the problem by taking away your whatever.

It is easy to ridicule this particular ban, and clearly it goes too far for most people, so I think it’s unlikely to pass. 

But the mindset behind it will not go gently into the good night.

We should all be grateful to Senator Kruger for his very clarifying remark.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Based on what I see around here, it occurs to me that the real danger does not lie in the cell phones or music players themselves, so much as it does in jaywalking by people who are using them.

But jaywalking is already illegal, right? So if the jaywalking iPodders are already not being protected against their own foolishness by laws against jaywalking, why would another law protect them?